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Topic: When in a quandry seek advice from the experts (Read 3757 times)

Morning, I'm in a quandry over which prog language to use. I have recently purchased a software development project which writes IRD approved return preparation software. The programme needs to updated annually to comply with new legislation. My problem is the program is written in VB4 and as such there are not a lot of developers/writers who still use that language in NZ. I am also "elderly" and I have to learn the VB4 prog language but would I be better to burst out and learn and compile the package in VB9 ensuring program longevity.

Advice or guidance on the pros and cons would be appreciated as at the moment I tend to be going in circles and getting nowhere.

I definitely think you would be better off upgrading the code to a current version of VB or whatever langauge you are going to use. Trying to use it in such an out of date development environment is only going to cause you pain.

Ironically, often the most difficult part of hiring a programmer for a task is not the actually coding but in figuring out exactly how the program should work and behave and look and feel. But if you have some existing code and just want it upgrading or translated into a different language, it's much more of a straightforward task.

I have the code as the programme is fully functional in VB4 however as you confirmed it is becoming a dated language. I can read and make minor adjustments to VB4 but it is the ongoing functionality I worry about hence my question. In NZ the difficulty is also finding estab which offer on line training even for VS 2008 and although I have sought programmers I have had no reply to date and I thought there was a recession?

Just been talking with Microsoft on whether VB 4 can be upgraded to Visual Studio 2008. They assured that it can however when searching for the upgrade literature I read that this was a big NO NO due to minor language changes but mainly due to .NET platform used. Do you know who is correct

In order that you might avoid the same outdated language issue that you're currently effected by, might I suggest a more heavily used language than VB.NET? Developers are fleeing VB.NET in droves for the power, consistency and familiarity of C#.

Where code maintainability and longevity are of primary concern, it can be advantageous to go with the more... dare i say, popular, languages.

C# is almost as verbose as VB.NET, but you'll find it is far more powerful, which will make coding much easier in the end IMHO. You should also find it very easy to pick up if you have even a passing familiarity with VB.NET. As an added bonus, reasonably simple projects will also run/compile on MAC and Linux under Mono.